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Mouse vaccine could protect humans from Lyme disease

5 March 2014

OUR newest weapon against Lyme disease might be a vaccine – for mice.

Every year in the US, 300,000 people are diagnosed with the tick-borne illness caused by Borrelia bacteria, which can trigger arthritis and neurological problems. A vaccine was developed in 1998 that triggers immunity to Borrelia burgdorferi, but side effects in humans meant it was pulled from the market in 2002.

Rather than abandon the vaccine, Maria Gomes-Solecki of the University of Tennessee in Memphis wondered if it could still work if it was just given to mice, a major reservoir of B. burgdorferi. Her idea was that ticks sucking the blood of vaccinated mice would ingest antibodies made by the mice. This would kill any bacteria the ticks carried and prevent them from transmitting the disease.

Gomes-Solecki baited four football pitch-sized plots of grassland with vaccine pellets and three with sham pellets. The number of infected ticks found in the vaccine treated plots decreased with time; the plot treated for 5 years saw a 76 per cent drop. Plots receiving no vaccine saw no decline (Journal of Infectious Disease, doi.org/rpv).

This article appeared in print under the headline “Vaccinate mice to stop tick disease”